A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 68% of U.S. voters now believe the United States should continue to build a fence on the Mexican border. That’s up nine points from March when the Obama administration halted funding for the fence and the highest level of support ever."

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Hot Air » DoJ stalling on protecting voting rights of military?: "After complaints from several election cycles that thousands of men and women stationed abroad in our military had trouble getting their ballots counted, Congress passed the MOVE Act to force states into compliance. According to one of its authors, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), the language is unambiguous and creates a mandate for enforcement by the Department of Justice. However, two whistleblowers formerly within the voting-rights section of the DoJ claim that the Obama administration is stalling on enforcement:"

Personal Health - What Do You Lack? Probably Vitamin D - NYTimes.com: "Vitamin D promises to be the most talked-about and written-about supplement of the decade. While studies continue to refine optimal blood levels and recommended dietary amounts, the fact remains that a huge part of the population — from robust newborns to the frail elderly, and many others in between — are deficient in this essential nutrient."

The legislation, called the Disclose Act, would require corporations to make detailed public reports on political spending. It failed on a 57-41 vote that went along party lines. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) voted against the motion, a procedural move to allow another vote to occur in the future."

The reason is simple. Any person of faith knows that religious exercise is about a lot more than freedom of worship. It’s about the right to dress according to one’s religious dictates, to preach openly, to evangelize, to engage in the public square. Everyone knows that religious Jews keep kosher, religious Quakers don’t go to war, and religious Muslim women wear headscarves—yet “freedom of worship” would protect none of these acts of faith.

Those who would limit religious practice to the cathedral and the home are the very same people who would strip the public square of any religious presence. They are working to tear down roadside memorial crosses built to commemorate fallen state troopers in Utah, to strip “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, and they recently stopped a protester from entering an art gallery because she wore a pro-life pin.

Drowning doesn't look like drowning - Boing Boing: "The kind of drowning you see on T.V.—think thrashy, screamy—doesn't have much in common with what real drowning looks like, according to writer and Navy/Coast Guard veteran Mario Vittone. That's because of something called the Instinctive Drowning Response, a pattern of behavior that appears to be hard-wired into humans and pops up whenever somebody feels like they're suffocating in water.

Frank Pia, Ph.D., the psychologist and lifeguard to first described the Instinctive Drowning Response explains it this way:"

A Word of Thanks to Four Black Men and A Gun « Pileus: "As an American, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to many, many people who have risked and given their lives to defend our liberty. But as I reflect on the recent Supreme Court decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago, I thought I should take a moment to mention four Americans who have made a relatively uncelebrated contribution to the freedom I cherish and enjoy. I owe a special debt to four black men, and one gun."

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The Return of the Jeffersonian Vision and the Rejection of Progressivism — The American, A Magazine of Ideas: "“No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” So reads a portion of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights passed by the First Congress and ratified by state legislatures, sponsored originally by Thomas Jefferson’s friend and political ally James Madison. It echoed, of course, Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”"

First: Mockery. They are very mockable, and they are very thin-skinned. That leads them to erupt in embarrassing ways. Use their sense of entitlement against them.

Second (and related): Transparency. One-party government makes you stupid, and although composed of both Democrats and Republicans the political class is basically its own party, and these people are pretty stupid. Point it out, repeatedly. Use FOIA, ubiquitous videocameras, and other tools to make the stupidity show."

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Hot Air » Chart of the Day: "Ezra Klein calls this “the scariest jobs graph you’ve seen yet,” and for good reason. The center-left Brookings Institute calculated what kind of job growth it would take to reach pre-recession employment levels, and how long it would take. Brookings takes into account population growth and therefore calculates that in this month, the total employment gap has expanded to 11.2 million jobs. According to their analysis, adding jobs at a rate equal to the best average monthly rate for any one year in the past decade will mean we won’t catch up to pre-recession employment until 2022:"

The American Spectator : America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution: "Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters -- speaking the 'in' language -- serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government."

The two classes have less in common culturally, dislike each other more, and embody ways of life more different from one another than did the 19th century's Northerners and Southerners -- nearly all of whom, as Lincoln reminded them, "prayed to the same God." By contrast, while most Americans pray to the God "who created and doth sustain us," our ruling class prays to itself as "saviors of the planet" and improvers of humanity. Our classes' clash is over "whose country" America is, over what way of life will prevail, over who is to defer to whom about what. The gravity of such divisions points us, as it did Lincoln, to Mark's Gospel: "if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand."

Friday, July 16, 2010

Fiscal Crisis: Visions of the Japanese Economic Nightmare - TheFiscalTimes.com: "America may be heading toward a Japanese-style lost decade of slow growth and painful economic choices. Until recently, the conventional wisdom among economists was no way. After all, the Fed’s aggressive rate cutting and asset purchases, aka quantitative easing, dwarfed Japan’s too-little-too-late efforts to revive growth. As a student of the Great Depression, Chairman Ben Bernanke’s shock-and-awe response, combined with massive federal spending, meant the U.S. economy would bounce back stronger and faster — right?

PRESS MAN: Don’t Give Readers What They Want: "His efforts peaked last year, when he unveiled a new business and editorial plan with three main elements. He raised the magazine’s price per issue, to a whopping $6 on newsstands. He cut costs by laying off staff and by letting half his subscribers drop off the rolls. And he recast the magazine’s content for those readers who were stubborn enough to hang on. His newsweekly, he said, would no longer even pretend to offer the traditional summary of the previous week’s events, as it had been doing, with dwindling enthusiasm, for nearly 80 years. Instead, readers would find “argued essays” and “reported narrative ... grounded in original observation and freshly discovered fact.” It would become a “provocative (but not partisan)” magazine of opinion—a liberal magazine written by liberals who didn’t want to admit they were liberals.

This final reinvention of Newsweek left Meacham’s customers with a choice. They could turn to the Web and get “a different kind of news” for free, or they could go to Newsweek and get “a different kind of news” for $6 a week. He seemed startled that so many of them turned out to be skinflints."

Negeen Mayel, 18, of California; Nabeel Qureshi, 29, of Virginia; Paul Rezkalla, 18 of New York, and David Wood, 34, also of New York, face fines of up to $500 each and up to 93 days in jail. Dearborn authorities said the four 'chose to escalate their behavior, which appeared well-orchestrated and deliberate' as they handed out religious literature and talking with people at the festival. The woman and three men are members or founders of a group called 'Acts 17 Apologetics.'

But Ann Arbor attorney Robert Muise, senior trial counsel with the Thomas More Law Center, said their constitutional rights were violated and they engaged in no illegal behaviors."

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Chicago approves tough new handgun restrictions - Yahoo! News: "The Chicago City Council on Friday approved what city officials say is the strictest handgun ordinance in the nation, but not before lashing out at the Supreme Court ruling they contend makes the city more dangerous because it will put more guns in people's hands.

The new ordinance bans gun shops in Chicago and prohibits gun owners from stepping outside their homes, even onto their porches or in their garages, with a handgun. It becomes law in 10 days, Corporation Counsel Mara Georges said.

The vote comes just four days after the high court ruled Americans have the right to have handguns anywhere for self-defense — a ruling that makes the city's 28-year-old ban on such weapons unenforceable."

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Hot Air » The Great Airbrushing meets the Great Relearning on the Fourth: "Like many states with large urban areas, California has a bit of a graffiti problem. Drive past a railroad yard, an industrial park, a bridge or an overpass, and the odds are very good that you’ll the spray-painted markings from a would-be artist’s latest quest for immortality. And given the slow rate that this stuff seems to get cleaned up, if ever, he may have stumbled over the perfect medium to achieve it.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

#50) A new report released by the United Nations is publicly calling for the establishment of a world currency and none of the major news networks are even covering it.

#49) The state of California is so broke that Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered California State Controller John Chiang to reduce state worker pay for July to the federal minimum allowed by law -- $7.25 an hour for most state workers.

#48) A police officer in Oklahoma recently tasered an 86-year-old disabled grandma in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn't breathe because they considered her to be a 'threat'.

#47) In early 2009, U.S. net national savings as a percentage of GDP went negative for the first time since 1952, and it has continued its downward trend since then."

Hillsdale College - Imprimis: "IN PRESIDENT Obama, conservatives face the most formidable liberal politician in at least a generation. In 2008, he won the presidency with a majority of the popular vote—something a Democrat had not done since Jimmy Carter's squeaker in 1976—and handily increased the Democrats' control of both houses of Congress. Measured against roughly two centuries worth of presidential victories by Democratic non-incumbents, his win as a percentage of the popular vote comes in third behind FDR's in 1932 and Andrew Jackson's in 1828."

Friday, July 02, 2010

New Genetic Model Accurately Predicts Who's Likely to Live to 100 | Popular Science: "In 1997, Jeanne Louise Calment of France died at the age of 122, making her the oldest documented human to have ever lived. People who live to be 100 years or older are rare, and only about 1 in 600,000 people in industrialized nations live that long. But is there something genetically unique about centenarians that enables them to age gracefully and relatively disease-free? According to the results of a long-term study at Boston University School of Medicine, the answer is yes."

About Me

Prior to his position as lead pastor in Hilmar California, Ron was senior pastor of Cross Road Assembly in Florence Oregon. He previously served on the pastoral staff at Atlantic Christian Assembly in Cape Town, South Africa, as well as Academic Site Director at Cornerstone Christian College in the same city. He was raised in California.
Ron has a B.A. in Ministerial Studies from Bethany College; an M.A. in Cross-Cultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a Master of Divinity from Assemblies of God Theological Seminary.
Ron is married to Karol, his wife of 25 years. They have a 14 year old daughter, Katie.
In his spare time Ron enjoys antiques, bicycling, computers, old cars, shooting, fishing and reading.
e-mail me at ronsbloviating at gmail dot com (change the at and dot)